


Dreams Are Not Flashbacks Because Flashback-Dreams Only Leave Behind Emotions

by InfiniteInMystery



Series: Gintoki's Angsty Mental Moments [5]
Category: Gintama
Genre: Angst, Comfort at the end?, Drowning, Exploration of things better left untouched, Gang Rape, It's Awful just assume it's Awful, M/M, Melancholy End, Mentions of Blood, Nightmares, One-Shot, Prison, Rape, Torture, Waterboarding, explicit - Freeform, mentions of breaking bones, not really - Freeform, rude language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:47:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24475981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfiniteInMystery/pseuds/InfiniteInMystery
Summary: Gintoki never stops having nightmares but he doesn't always dream about Shouyou. It's just a different memory sometimes.Almost all of his memories are nightmares.
Series: Gintoki's Angsty Mental Moments [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1767850
Comments: 2
Kudos: 89





	Dreams Are Not Flashbacks Because Flashback-Dreams Only Leave Behind Emotions

**Author's Note:**

> Did you read the tags? Did you really read them? I think I got them all.
> 
> This was prompted.

Gintoki didn't always dream about the head rolling towards him in the dirt, pale hair flying as it came closer and closer. When the head stopped at his feet, dead eyes and a kind smile stared up at him, leaving his knees weak and his heart shuddering.

No. He didn't always dream about Shouyou's head.

After Shouyou, Gintoki had turned himself in during the Kansai Purge, had willingly been cuffed and incarcerated. At first, he had spent his time in the damp cell thinking. Reflecting. Repenting. Offering silent prayers to the nameless dead, honoring them, and mourning them in the silence of his heart. Gintoki believed and still sometimes believed that he had deserved to rot in that damp cell two floors under the main prison. He should have been left to wither away and die like a rabid dog of war, forgotten with the rest of the pack like the savage beasts they had been called.

But he had been special.

“All bark and no bite, aren't you Shiroyasha?”

Instead of being forgotten and left for dead, he was on his bruised knees, hands cuffed behind his back. His fingers and legs were numb from the position, the interrogation going on longer than usual. The beatings weren't the hard part, the sensation of warm blood trickling down his face a regular occurrence in his life lately. He'd take the beatings. It was everything else that tried him, made him contemplate the easy way out.

His head was shoved into the chilled bucket of water, hair and shoulders sopping wet, the frozen cubes bouncing gently against his ears as he drowned. He screamed beneath the surface because it was his only chance to let out the pent up emotions, the only time he could cry without being caught. He always fought against the hands curled viciously in his hair, but he choked all the same. Through the sound of water rushing around him, Gintoki could hear them laughing. Laughing at him. Calling him a war dog, an alpha mutt stripped of his power, a traitor. They weren't wrong, but that was the part Gintoki hated the most.

They were right.

 _Where's Takasugi Shinsuke? Katsura Kotarou?_ _Where are they?_ He would never tell them. Never. He had failed his friends enough already, he wouldn't sell them out too. The guards pulled his head from the bucket just before he passed out from lack of oxygen, Gintoki desperately inhaling water particles and air alike before they dunked him again.

His head got slammed under four more times, each time subduing his struggles and leaving his head spinning more than the last. The shock of the water left a permanent tremble in his body, had started to fill up his dreams lately, leaving him gasping in the night and clawing at his throat. His knees were shaking by the time they pulled him out and let him breathe, really breathe, that hand still snug in his hair, noisy gasps filling up the small room they had him locked in. There were four guards, a single light dangling on a chain from above, painting their monstrous shadows on the wall as the light swung gently. There were no windows, just concrete floors, and walls, the smell of mold and mildew clogging Gintoki's cleared sinuses. They were higher-ranking guards, guards who could afford a little misconduct under the warden's nose.

The man holding Gintoki pulled his head back by his hair, tilting his chin up when Gintoki couldn't balance on his shaking knees. One of the other guards came and squatted before him with a chuckle, his breath sour, and his teeth gross. Gintoki's lips pulled back at him, nose crinkling and eyes narrowing into slits. He had been demure the first couple of months until his name had gotten around, his passive attitude catching attention and drawing in curiosity. Lately, Gintoki had started to bite back to defend himself when the interrogations got more sadistic for the sake of pleasure. The two guards in the corner had originally targeted him because he had been easy. The newest two had targeted him after he bit a chunk out of another guard's groin when the man had tried to pry Gintoki's mouth open and shove himself inside. That had been the first and last time they had tried to assault him like that. Word spread quickly, it seemed.

The warden didn't care where Katsura was. The guards didn't care about what happened to Takasugi. If they got an honest answer out of Gintoki, that would only be a bonus for them. What they were doing here was just for fun.

“Oh ho ho, look at that face!” The man laughed. He gave Gintoki's cheek a couple of slaps like Gintoki's attention was wandering, laughing while he did it. His hand caressed the sting after, eyes on Gintoki's tired ones as his thumb brushed over skin like he was trying to soothe the little demon. “You won't sell your friends out even though they left you behind, didn't they? They deserve to be here just as much as you do. We can tell when a dog gets kicked out of his pack. Tell me, what did you do, little Shiroyasha? You bite the hand that fed?”

Gintoki would never tell. Frustrated and going down with his pride, Gintoki snapped his teeth over the man's hand, catching him before he could pull his hand away.

The others laughed when the man squawked, ripping his hand from Gintoki's teeth and tearing his own flesh. His blood mixed in with Gintoki's blood on the floor. The guard hit him for it. Cuffed him straight across the cheek hard enough to split Gintoki's lip. And then he hit him again just for good measure.

“Get him on the ground.”

It was a change in the routine. Suddenly Gintoki had his face shoved into the concrete, the thin sheet they called a yukata tied around his waist was pulled free. His heart lurched into his chest as he glanced at the man approaching him, watching as the guard untied his belt and let his pants loosen around his hips. He was excited and erect, his pants dropping open just enough for Gintoki to see what he was going to be dealing with.

Gintoki knew. He jerked against the man holding him, contemplating his options. He knew exactly what was going to happen now, had worried about it back when he had first started restlessly pacing his cell late at night like a wolf trapped in a cage. It had just taken so long for them to threaten him again that Gintoki had stopped worrying about it, worrying more about the bucket and the pillowcase they liked to slip over his head before dousing it with water.

“You might want to tell us or we'll put that pretty little mouth to good use.” The man said. He was the type to get off on Gintoki fighting back, but with blood spurting from his groin after a well-placed bite, he would be off duty for a few months too.

Gintoki turned his face into the ground with his eyes wide, _knowing_ , his next inhale shakier than the last. He was kicked over onto his side, the guard with his hands threaded through Gintoki's hair releasing him and backing off. The leader of the group stepped between Gintoki's scrawny knees, kicking them apart. He dropped down between them and leaned over Gintoki, his hand snatching up Gintoki's jaw. “You want to apologize?”

Gintoki obviously didn't apologize, figured it wouldn't have stopped them anyway.

“You bite me again and I'll rip out more teeth. Maybe I'll have those pretty canines this time.” Before Gintoki could really come to terms with what was about to happen, the guard shoved three of his fingers into Gintoki's mouth. He'd lost his fourth-molars earlier that month during a _routine_ interrogation, his gums sore as the guard began to poke and prod at everything he could touch, slathering his hand in Gintoki's saliva. Gintoki closed his eyes as the man shoved his fingers down the back of his throat, resisting the urge to snap his jaw shut around thin bone, realizing this was going to go further than just his mouth being used. They were just fingers. _They're just fingers._ _Fingers are like carrots, you know?_ Gintoki's brain reminded him as he choked. _One good bite could break them all._

Gintoki didn't bite. He gasped for breath instead when the fingers were pulled from his mouth, his eyes turned up to the ceiling as the guard manipulated one of his thin legs to open wider. Gintoki jerked his leg back to kick him in the face and hopefully break his nose, but the guard caught his ankle, a grin splitting across his face as he made eye contact with Gintoki.

“You want me to dislocate your hip first?” The guard pushed awkwardly on Gintoki's leg, testing its flexibility. Gintoki froze, knowing that even if he beat all four men down, he was still locked in the room and the repercussions would just end up with _more_ rape than what he was facing now.

“That's a good little war dog.” The guard glanced down, eyes raking over the bruised pale skin on display. The guard didn't hesitate to jam his fingers past the clenched ring of muscle between Gintoki's spread legs with a laugh, just enough to get Gintoki open before pressing himself into the narrow space he had made for himself.

Gintoki's head rolled back, teeth clenched while the other men hooted around him. The guard wasn't having much luck shoving himself in from this angle. That's how Gintoki found himself on his hands and knees being forcefully penetrated for the first time in his life, the pain hot enough to keep Gintoki's face down to the ground and a cry tearing from the back of his throat. He pulled on the cuffs, shredding his own skin.

“Fuckin' tight.” The guard moaned, his fingers digging into Gintoki's hips hard enough to leave black bruises as he thrust slowly, Gintoki's tension still squeezing him hard enough to be painful. Another guard sat down in front of Gintoki's face, his fingers sliding into Gintoki's wet curls as Gintoki gasped into the ground.

“Not so tough now, Shiroyasha? All bark and no bite when the big dogs come to play.” One of the other men laughed, but he was still skirting around the edges of the scene in nervous excitement. “I want him with his head wrapped in a wet cloth. Don't trust those teeth, you know?”

“You're one sick fuck”

“He's definitely not the group bitch, he's got no give.” The guard in him laughed, his hips snapping into Gintoki's as the friction eased. “Guess I owe Tanaka a hundred yen. Figured he was at least someone's bitch in the war. Look at his cute little face, who could resist? ”

Each man took his turn and once they were done, they shoved Gintoki's head back into the bucket for good measure. Drowning again, Gintoki remembered Shouyou's head rolling, wondered if he really deserved to repent like this.

It was the first time, but it wouldn't be the last.

–

Gintoki woke with a gasp. When his eyes flew open, he couldn't remember what he had been dreaming about but the lurking sensation of hands ghosting over his skin told him more than he wanted to know. His hands were shaking, heart quivering. His cheeks were wet.

He was warm, gentle morning light flowing in from his bedroom window, a blanket trapped over his hips. Sadaharu was sleeping over his left arm, the Inugami exhaling straight into Gintoki's face smelling like cheap dog food and garbage. Curled around Gintoki's right arm was Kagura, snoring straight into his ear, breathing her stinky kid breath right into his face. She had her head on his pillow, the blanket lost long ago to the corners of the room. At his feet, Shinpachi had a pillow that he wasn't even sleeping on, was sprawled out over the tatami even though the kid had brought his own futon to share with Kagura.

Gintoki huffed out a breath at these idiots, tension he hadn't realized he'd been carrying leaving him as he exhaled, his eyes fluttering closed. His nerves were still shuddering through his body leaving him a little flighty, but the snores lulled him back to sleep. He was safe. Warm. And with him, his kids were safe and warm too. Sometimes he didn't dream about Shouyou. Sometimes he didn't dream about his dead comrades rising up on the battlefield, skeletons with flesh hanging from them turning to stare at him in judgment. Sometimes he didn't dream about the bucket and having his insides torn out, about teeth being ripped from his gums and starving in the dark only craving a source of light.

If he dreamed, Gintoki still had nightmares. Always. He just didn't wake up to them anymore.


End file.
